This is so exciting! HIV and AIDS have had such a huge impact during our lifetime, it is amazing to think we could be nearing a cure.

Quote:

Danish scientists are expecting results showing that it will be possible to find a cure that is both affordable and can be provided to a large number of people. They are running clinical trials to test a ''novel strategy'' in which the HIV virus, which causes AIDS, is stripped from human DNA and destroyed by the immune system. It has already been found to work in laboratory tests and the scientists are now running human trials.

The technique involves releasing the HIV virus from ''reservoirs'' it forms in DNA cells, bringing it to the surface of the cells. Once it comes to the surface, the body's immune system can kill the virus through being boosted by a ''vaccine''. In vitro studies - those that use human cells in a laboratory - of the new technique proved so successful that in January the Danish Research Council awarded the team 12 million kroner ($2 million) to pursue clinical trials with human subjects.

Ole Sogaard, a senior researcher at the Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark who is leading the study, said: ''I am almost certain we will be successful in releasing the reservoirs of HIV. ''The challenge will be getting the immune system to recognise the virus and destroy it. This depends on the strength and sensitivity of individual immune systems.'' Fifteen patients are taking part in the trials, and if they are found to have been cured of HIV, the process will be tested on a wider scale.

Right? I just keep remembering all the Time covers about AIDS and HIV, from Reagan's comments about it andthe politicization of the disease as a "gay" disease. And then having the tide turn with people like Ryan White and Magic Johnson. It just feels like such a big part of our shared history from the 80s on.

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

This would be tremendous. Though I'm always skeptical of "cure in X amount of time" claims. It's impossible to know how the scientific process will go or how long it will take, and it's heartbreaking when the time passes and you're still sick.

This would be awesome and I do hope that they do really find the cure.

I was a little peeved about the "both affordable and can be provided to a large number of people" part. You would think that upon finding a cure for AIDS we would give it to everyone infected regardless of whether they can afford it or not.

This would be awesome and I do hope that they do really find the cure.

I was a little peeved about the "both affordable and can be provided to a large number of people" part. You would think that upon finding a cure for AIDS we would give it to everyone infected regardless of whether they can afford it or not.

Pretty sure they mean that to be hopeful. Affordable as in, cheap enough to physically make that governments/relief agencies could afford to cure the large amount of people infected with it.

If it were expensive to make the stuff (I don't mean retail price, I mean, pure, base product cost), there would only be so much that could be done about giving it out to the large amount of people with this virus.

This would be awesome and I do hope that they do really find the cure.

I was a little peeved about the "both affordable and can be provided to a large number of people" part. You would think that upon finding a cure for AIDS we would give it to everyone infected regardless of whether they can afford it or not.

Yes, anti-retrovirals which are a standard of treatment here in the US are prohibitively expensive in many other countries. We have friends who died of AIDS in Kenya, who would probably still be alive if they had had access to them. People die of curable diseases all the time, as annak says.

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

So.. This is a case of a misinformed journalist. The scientists have been out in the danish media and said that they have not found the cure for HIV, and that it is basically just a breakthrough on a really small scale. It makes me really sad. Journalists need to stop concluding on science news they don't understand.